1. Field Of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method of cleaning the surface of metals, and particularly to a system and method for removing corrosion from the edges of aluminum tubes and ducts to prepare for soldering, welding, and brazing.
2. Background
Soldering, welding, or brazing of pipe, tubing, or ducts (“tubes”) require that the mating surfaces of the tubes be thoroughly cleaned to present oxide-free and contaminant-free surfaces that can be joined together. Joints are required to be free of porosity and voids so that the joints in the tubes do not leak.
Conventionally, tubes are cleaned by manually removing oxides and dry contaminants by rubbing the joint surfaces with steel wool, emery cloth, or wire brushes. For example, oxides may be removed from tube surfaces with drill mounted bottle brushes.
Cleaning of a large number of tube components can be tedious and time-consuming using conventional methods for cleaning tube surfaces. For example, a conventional method uses a stainless steel bottle brush mounted in an air drill that rotates at approximately 2000 rpm. The drill is clamped to a work bench and the tubing is manually moved across the edge of the bottle brush to attempt to remove material from the tube end. The cycle time for this conventional method is about three minutes per edge.
Consequently, conventional cleaning methods can be time consuming, lead to inefficiencies due to operator inattention and error, and result in high processing costs. Manually removing material from tubing edges often entails variability of the amount of material removed and inconsistent quality of material removal.
Therefore, what is desired is an apparatus and method for cleaning tubing that saves time, minimizes inefficiencies due to operator inattention and error, minimizes processing costs (such as labor costs), and which effectively and consistently cleans tubing edges.